Married In Haste

by Dani Sinclair

  The driver was as good his word, and he’d been right about the electricity. Other than emergency lights, the hotel didn’t have any. Greg reeled when he stepped from the cab, and McKella had to half support him up the three flights of stairs to his room.

  Her wet clothes chafed her skin, and she was exhausted. She wanted to get Greg situated so she could return to her own room and slip into something dry and comfortable.

  He used the bathroom while she prowled his bedroom. As he came out, he swayed. “Want me to help you undress?” she asked, hurrying to his side.

  He attempted a leer—without success. “Maybe later. I can manage.”

  “Right. I can see that.”

  Masculine pride was such a fragile thing.

  McKella decided to use the facilities rather than to watch him struggle with his shoes. Greg was under the covers on the king-size bed by the time she came out. A pile of damp clothing littered the floor. His bare arms and a view of the top of his chest made her wonder if he wore anything at all beneath that sheet and blanket.

  “There’s a sweatshirt in the closet that should work as a nightgown,” he told her groggily.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t need a nightgown. I’m going to my—”

  “No, you aren’t.” All trace of weakness left his voice. With effort he lifted himself on an elbow.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You don’t have to beg, you just have to stay here.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back, Greg. Get some rest.” She started for the door.

  He sat all the way up with a groan of pain that stopped her in her tracks. The sheet dropped. Greg was bare to the waist.

  “Go out that door and I’ll go after you stark naked.”

  So much for wondering what he wore. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He flung back the covers and swung his feet over the side. She immediately averted her gaze, fixing it on his obstinate face. “Get back in bed.”

  “Release the doorknob.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I could ask you the same question, but I’m too tired for games right now, McKella. We don’t know where your husband is. Do you really want to find yourself facing him alone right now?”

  Air caught in her throat. “He wouldn’t—You don’t think—Why would he go to my room?”

  “Where else can he go?”

  “We should call Constable Freer.”

  “No phones, remember?”

  “I could go downstairs and get Security.”

  “You could,” he agreed. “But someone might get hurt. Hotel security isn’t any match for a desperate man. If he’s upstairs waiting for you, let him wait. Frankly, I’m so tired I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing. Are you so anxious to have him arrested that it can’t wait until we’ve had some rest?”

  Of course she didn’t want Paul arrested. At least not until she talked to him. It was desperately hard to think. Even harder to keep her eyes where they belonged. They strayed, and she caught a glimpse of white. “You’re wearing briefs!”

  A smile curved his lips. “You peeked.”

  She was thankful for the dimness of the room, which she hoped would hide the blush she knew stained her cheeks.

  “Greg—”

  “McKella, he can wait ‘til morning. And I promise you, no matter how badly I want you, if you stripped for me right now, I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything but savor the memory. I’m more asleep than awake. Come to bed.”

  “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  He held up a hand in protest. “It’s a big bed. I promise, that’s all we’ll do. I’ll stay under the blanket on my side, and you can take the comforter.” His voice dropped. “Please. I need to know you’re safe.”

  If he hadn’t added that last, she could have ignored him. Maybe.

  She released the doorknob. She would lie down until he fell asleep—which should take about three seconds given his present condition, she decided. Then she could go downstairs and get someone from Security to check her room. If only the idea of climbing into bed with Greg wasn’t doing such strange things to her nervous system…

  “The sweatshirt’s in the closet?” she asked.

  “Hanging up.”

  Why did this feel like such a dangerous mistake? “I want a quick shower first.” Maybe if she dallied in the bathroom, he’d fall asleep and never notice she was gone.

  “Promise you won’t leave?”

  Blast the man. “Don’t you trust me?”

  The corners of his mouth quirked as he tried to smile again. “With my life.” He slid back under the sheet and blanket and closed his eyes.

  The solemn way that he uttered those words made mincemeat of her resolve. McKella went to the closet, found the black sweatshirt and reentered the bathroom. The sweatshirt, she soon discovered, while plenty roomy and smelling tantalizingly of Greg’s spicy aftershave, did little more than cover her lower extremities.

  There was something naughty and intimate about the feel of the nubby material against her bare skin. Self-conscious, she stepped back into the bedroom. Greg didn’t move. He was on his side facing her and appeared to be sound asleep.

  She studied his strong profile, unsettled by emotions she didn’t want to examine too closely. She could leave right now and he’d be none the wiser. But she found she couldn’t do it. She had all but promised to stay.

  As silently and as carefully as she could, she slid under the comforter on the far side of the bed.

  “‘Night ‘Kella.”

  His drowsy voice warmed the dark room.

  “Go to sleep, Greg.” She closed her own eyes, knowing that falling to sleep would be a difficult chore for her, despite the exhaustion slowly robbing her of strength. She was entirely too aware of the man on the other side of the bed.

  GREG HEARD THE FIRM RAP on the door and hurried to answer before McKella woke up. He toweled away the last vestiges of shaving cream as he unlatched the door and swung it open. The now-familiar lanky police detective stood on the other side, hand raised to knock again.

  “Ah, you are here.”

  Greg moved to block Freer when he would have entered the room, but it was too late. McKella called out in sleepy confusion.

  “Good. Mrs. Dinsmore is here as well.”

  “Uh, yeah. Could you come back in a few—”

  “Who is it, Greg?”

  McKella arrived at his side, looking rumpled and sleepy and sexy as hell in his sweatshirt.

  Resigned to the inevitable, Greg expelled a long breath. “Constable Freer.”

  “Oh.” Abruptly, her eyes grew round. “Oh, blast.”

  “Yeah. I’d say that sums it up nicely. Your clothes are mostly dry now.”

  Pink tinged her cheeks. She looked past Greg to the man who watched the scene with quiet interest.

  “Let him in, Greg. If you gentlemen will excuse me while I dress? This isn’t what it looks like.” She started for the bathroom and stopped, turning to Greg. “I need coffee. I don’t suppose we have electricity yet?”

  “Sorry.” He stepped back and motioned the detective inside. The man took in the rumpled bed and the pile of clothing without so much as a raised eyebrow.

  “She’s right, you know. This isn’t what it looks like. We shared a bed, but not each other,” Greg told him.

  “I see.”

  “I doubt it.” Greg headed for the closet and yanked out his last polo shirt. Gently, he pulled the green knit over his head, wincing when he brushed the tender skin near the crown. If he didn’t have such a thick skull, he’d be dead right now.

  “How is your head, Mr. Wyman?”

  Freer didn’t overlook much. No doubt he’d already seen the full doctor’s report. “It hurts like hell, thank you. What time is it anyhow? My watch stopped.”

  “Ten past three.”

  Amazed, Greg strode across the room to pull back the heavy drapes. The dismal, rainy view let in little addition
al light.

  “You and Mrs. Dinsmore had an eventful evening.”

  He faced the detective, wondering what the man was thinking. “You could say that”

  “And Mr. Dinsmore was also present?”

  “For a little while. Fortunately, he disappeared along with the tornado. With any luck, he’s halfway across the ocean by now.”

  The officer cocked his head. Greg would have sworn that he saw a sparkle of amusement whisk across the man’s obsidian eyes.

  “I gather you do not know his whereabouts at the present time?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “You went to the cottage to meet him?”

  “No,” McKella stated from the bathroom doorway, “I did. Greg just went along for the ride.”

  Her blouse and slacks were hopelessly wrinkled. There was a tear at one knee, while the other was badly stained. Yet her hair was combed, drifting around her flushed face. Adorable was probably not the image she wanted to present, but that was just how she looked to Greg.

  “You did not think to tell me of your plans?” Freer asked her.

  “I thought about it, but I discarded the idea.” She raised her chin.

  McKella didn’t need a power outfit to don her professional persona, Greg decided. Too bad she hadn’t wanted to take over Patterson Opticals. She could have done the job. She was quite capable of holding her own right now, despite her rumpled appearance and the compromising situation.

  “I needed to speak with Paul first,” she told Freer, “to find out what is going on.”

  “And were you successful?”

  She shook her head, a bleak expression settling over her features. “The tornado intervened.”

  “Really? You were inside for an hour and seventeen minutes before the tornado struck.”

  “You were watching us?” Greg asked.

  “One of my men drove your cab.”

  Sucker-punched again, he thought. “Well, why the hell didn’t he do something?”

  Freer scratched absently at his head. “About what, Mr. Wyman? I assure you, halting tornados is not in his job description. His job was to observe and report. I am afraid he had a slight mishap after he dropped the two of you off. The storm, you understand.”

  “Is he all right?” McKella asked quickly.

  “Quite all right, thank you. The car, I am afraid, suffered a fate similar to your cottage.”

  Greg sat down in the chair to pull on his still uncomfortably wet shoes. “Have you found her husband yet?”

  “I am afraid not. If Mrs. Dinsmore—McKella—hadn’t been so insistent that he was in the rubble last night, we would not have known he had been there at all.”

  She plopped down on the edge of the bed. “He only arrived a few minutes before the tornado.”

  Greg shook his head. “He was there all along, ‘Kella.”

  “Where? We checked the house.”

  “I never checked the balconies. He must have waited outside while I searched the upstairs.”

  McKella looked pained. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  The officer looked pointedly from one to the other of them, then at the large bed. “Nor do I.”

  “McKella slept on top of the sheets,” Greg was quick to defend. “I slept under them. I was afraid to let her go back to her room alone and I couldn’t make it that far.”

  “Afraid?”

  Greg met the other man’s bland expression. “Afraid her husband would show up. Afraid you’d have another dead body on your hands.”

  “You still believe her husband will kill her, Mr. Wyman?”

  “Someone tried to. Remember the café?”

  McKella bristled. “That truck killed the woman who was rooming with Betty Jane.”

  “And would have killed us if we hadn’t gotten out of the way,” Greg retorted.

  “The lorry could have been directed at any one of you. Or all three,” Freer pointed out calmly.

  Greg pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing his headache would settle to a dull throb.

  “Interesting that you mentioned the accident,” Freer continued. “Before the telephone lines were disrupted, I received some information.”

  Greg braced himself for what he knew was coming.

  “Eleanor Miller Dinsmore Beauchamp appears to have been married to Paul Dinsmore as well.”

  Stunned, McKella stared at the officer while her heart pounded against her chest.

  “You were not aware of this fact?” Freer asked.

  “No.” She turned toward Greg in pain and accusation. He’d known. She was sure of it when his eyes met hers.

  “Were you aware your husband has a juvenile record?” Freer wanted to know.

  McKella didn’t even glance at the policeman, but her fingers curled at her sides as she remembered Greg had told her about the warehouse. He hadn’t lied about that. Maybe everything else he’d told her had been the truth as well.

  “Paul was a criminal?”

  “Misdemeanors,” Freer told her. “Fistfights, disturbing the peace, traffic violations. He was questioned about several thefts, but no charges were ever brought.” Freer paused. “Not even when Paul Dinsmore, his friend Jason McConnel, and McConnel’s younger brother Brendon—or BG as he was known—were questioned in the death of McConnel’s father.”

  Her body absorbed the words like blows. “No,” she whispered. She shook her head in groggy negation. Greg’s impassive stare never left her face. He had known all this and yet he hadn’t told her.

  Because he was Jason McConnel?

  “According to the report,” Freer continued, “the three young men were the scourge of their small town. Trouble followed them wherever they went.”

  No expression showed on Greg’s face or in his cloudy blue-green eyes. McKella turned away.

  “Is this what Eric Henning discovered?” she asked the officer.

  “That is, of course, possible,” Freer conceded. “I thought perhaps you knew about your husband’s past.”

  Her chin came up. “No. It’s becoming clear to me that I know absolutely nothing at all about my husband. What I thought I knew seems to consist of lies. Was Paul divorced from either woman?”

  The question startled the policeman. “Do you have reason to question this?”

  She sensed Greg tense as he waited for her reply, but she didn’t glance in his direction.

  “Given everything else you’re discovering about his past, nothing would surprise me. Paul told me Betty Jane had approached him to say their divorce wasn’t final. He claimed she wanted money.”

  McKella couldn’t quite bring herself to expose the things Greg had told her, despite her certainty that he had lied to her—at least by omission.

  “You did not mention this before,” Freer chided.

  “I felt I owed my husband my loyalty before. Now…” She shrugged. “It will simplify my divorce proceedings if we aren’t legally married.” She only hoped the pain building inside her didn’t show. She had worried about turning into a wuss. Instead, she should have worried about being a gullible fool.

  “Indeed.” Freer rubbed thoughtfully at the back of his head, his eyes moving from one to the other. “It cannot be coincidence that all of you are on Bermuda at this time.”

  “Agreed,” McKella told him.

  The officer cocked his head and waited, looking from one face to the other. Greg remained mute.

  “Do you have anything to add, Mr. Wyman?” he asked after a moment.

  “No, sir.”

  “You know that we will find a connection if it exists. Far better for you to tell me now.”

  “Sorry. I can’t tell you anything.”

  “We are a small police force, Mr. Wyman, but we are not stupid.”

  “No, sir. I’d say you are far from that.”

  The officer inclined his head, accepting the faint praise. Then he inhaled and released the air on a long sigh. “At the moment, Mr. Wyman, I can find nothing to tie you to Mr. Dinsmore or th
e two dead women.”

  “Good. I don’t fancy being a suspect in a situation like this one.”

  “Ah, but you are. I am afraid until we get to the bottom of things, your proximity to these events leaves me no choice but to consider both of you suspects in the murder of Betty Jane Dinsmore.”

  “What? Why?” McKella demanded. “We were sitting in the café. There’s no way we could have killed that poor woman.”

  Greg stepped forward. She felt his solid presence inches from her back.

  “McKella’s actions should be easy enough to trace from the time her plane landed,” he said.

  “I don’t need you to defend me, Greg,” she said without turning around. She sensed his hurt at her rebuke, but continued. “As the constable said, his officers are far from stupid.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Fine,” Greg agreed quietly. “I’m afraid proving my actions will take more effort, but I’m sure at least one of the shopkeepers will remember me. I spent rather lavishly in a couple of the menswear shops here in St. George’s. In fact, I have the receipts in my wallet. With any luck, one or two will have time-and-date stamps on them.”

  McKella’s heart pounded, as he retrieved his wallet and sorted through the damp contents. Whatever reason Greg had for keeping information from her, she was certain he hadn’t murdered anyone.

  “Why would either one of us kill Betty Jane?” she asked in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice.

  “Why, indeed?” Freer glanced meaningfully at the bed, and McKella knew she blushed. Greg clenched his teeth.

  “I will obtain more information once the trunk lines are restored,” Freer told them. “For now, I request that the two of you remain available for further questions.”

  At least he wasn’t going to arrest them.

  Freer accompanied them down the hall to McKella’s room. She left the two men standing there talking while she went in to change clothing.

  As she pulled on a jumpsuit, she remembered that Greg had used Eleanor’s maiden name when he confronted Paul in the cottage. If he was really Jason McConnel, as she suspected, he must know a lot about her husband. Hadn’t the constable said the two men had been friends?

  Her ring snagged on the soft material of her outfit. If Greg was telling her the truth, she wasn’t legally married to Paul at all. The ring’s diamond winked in the light as if to mock her.